Trending
MORGANTOWN -- The vast number of fans may not want to admit it, but there were some positives that came out of West Virginia's 30-14 loss at Iowa State.
"I was happy with Shea (Campbell). He went in, he switched positions," WVU coach Dana Holgorsen said. "He'd been playing Sam, and he moved to Mike. Tonk (redshirt sophomore linebacker Dylan Tonkery) tried to go, and he couldn't go. I thought he (Campbell) did an adequate job. I was happy with him, with how he practiced throughout the course of the week. Then, he went in there and made some good stops."
Not just good, but better than expected.
The Morgantown native not only led the Mountaineers in tackles with 12 (6 solos, 6 assists), but the redshirt junior also finished with half of the Mountaineers' tackles for loss (2).
Add in the performances of Josh Norwood (7 solos, 3 assists), sophomore Derrek Pitts Jr. (6 solos, 2 assists) and USC transfer Kenny Bigelow Jr.'s block of a Cyclones' field goal attempts -- returned 72 yards by Pitts for the Mountaineers' final points -- and the defense did have its moments.
Campbell's effort going forward could be very important if veteran defensive coordinator Tony Gibson turns the reigns of middle linebacker in the team's 3-3-5 alignment over to the Morgantown High School graduate and move Bridgeport's Tonkery back to the Sam position he played a year ago.
More importantly, it gives the linebacking corps much needed depth as it prepares to take on a Baylor University team that nearly overcame a 25-point deficit before falling to WVU by a 38-36 margin last season.
"I basically said this one is on the offense," senior wide receiver David Sills V said. "The defense is playing great football right now. We didn't help them. We want to complement each other. The offense wants to feed off the defense and the defense wants to feed off the offense.
"We didn't give anything for the defense to feed off of, and they still played a great game. They were getting stops for us, and we didn't capitalize at all. It hurts me saying that, but that's what happened today."
And, to accomplish that feat the offense front must improve, and others must do their jobs better if West Virginia's anemic rushing attack is to get better.
"They're not the only ones that block, right?" Holgorsen said. "We need out receivers to do a much better job of blocking on the perimeter. That's one of the things that I'll focus on at practice. It's OK, just OK. They've had their good moments and their bad moments. We've ID'd much better.
"Some issues against Kansas were some ID issues, some missed points, effort issues at times. We were better in that regard, but we didn't finish blocks. We're blocking the right people, and we have to do a little bit better with finishing those blocks. Other than that, it's really the same thing with o-line, receivers and running backs. Will (Grier) got sacked on one of them because Kennedy (McKoy) didn't finish a block. If he fits up on a linebacker, he has to sustain that block longer than 0.2 seconds. That's an offensive across the board issue that we will focus on this week."
And, that begins at 7 p.m. Thursday night when WVU entertain the Baylor Bears at Milan Puskar Stadium. The game will be televised on Fox Sports 1.